Brothers Carl & Alex, aged 16 and 12, are the youngest bloggers in our mix. Like any lads of their age, they enjoy a laugh as much as the serious side of fishing.

WELCOME to our Friday blog. Every Friday we hand over to Carl and Alex Smith – known online as simply Carl & Alex.

Two of the keenest youngsters we’ve come across, with a passion for making a variety of fishing videos, they’ll provide a youth dimension to our new blogging mix.

We hope you enjoy the blog, written by Carl, and share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the icons above, or by the “old skool” method of telling fellow anglers!

Feel free also to comment by using the special space at the bottom on this page.

SNEAKING THE RODS AWAY FOR HOLIDAY FISHING

AFTER having a fish filled week in France we were on our way to Iceland – for a fish-free holiday (according to our parents).

And so for the first week we admired stones, rocks, boulders and volcanos. However, we’re anglers, right?! We had packed our Tenkara USA fly rods. Being telescopic they fold up so short that we had managed to pack them without our parents noticing!

And what a surprise we had when we arrived at our next hotel; a few yards away was a small, clear river with brown and sea trout! The next day we walked along to the village petrol station and bought a half-day licence from 4pm til 10pm giving us the morning to look for likely spots. We found a couple of places where we saw trout and decided to fish later.

Casting out into the pure crystal waters of Iceland.

Come 4pm we grabbed our rods and flies and walked along to the river. We could tell after a few casts that the fish didn’t want food as they weren’t moving an inch from the bottom even when our fly drifted past them. But when the midges came out the trout started to feed – they were jumping for flies!

Tenkara is a type of fly fishing which is very simple as there is no reel involved and the line is tied on to the end of the rod. The rod is also very light which, with fly fishing, is very important as you’re always holding the rod and casting.

Sea trout caught on the light rod.

8pm soon came along with more fish jumping for flies. I cast into the fast flow and slowly retrieved the fly. Something had hit it and put up a crazy fight…. despite being only a small salmon parr. Casting out again to the same spot resulted in the target species, a small brown trout.

It did seem like this was a feeding spell and sometimes they don’t last long but yet again another cast to the same spot caught me a lovely sea trout. It put up a great fight on the light rod. Three fish in the space of 20 minutes!

Sadly I was right, it was to be a short feeding spell. The fish just weren’t taking the fly so we tried other spots but couldn’t manage a single bite.

By 10pm still no more bites. Although only a few fish had been caught it was a bonus for a fish free holiday. So, if you’re going away, don’t forget to pack a short fold down rod. You may find it comes in useful!

A few more holiday snaps…

We’ve seen carp do this, but whale watching was a first!

A n-ice catch for Alex. We’ll have to wait a few months to catch these back home.

Wonder what’s at the bottom of the fall? We never did find out…

CLICK BELOW FOR OUR NEW TENKARA VIDEO

If you want to see more of the lads’ videos for free, now, just browse the Carl & Alex channel in this website’s new TV player.

CARL & ALEX’S NEXT BLOG WILL APPEAR ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7.

Here’s the list of all our exclusive new daily blogs and when they go live: